


Rats!

by pennysparrow



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Birds of Prey (Comic), DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), The Flash (Comics)
Genre: Barbara Gordon is Oracle, Canon Compliant, Gen, Gotham City - Freeform, Museums, Rats, Slight Flirting, do not copy to another site
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26801143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pennysparrow/pseuds/pennysparrow
Summary: When Babs finds herself faced with some persistent motion detectors she's really hoping it's not because of a ghost or something like that. It's Gotham, so she can't rule it out. It just would make her life some mush easier if that weren't the case.
Relationships: Barbara Gordon & Dick Grayson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Rats!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carbon65](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carbon65/gifts).



> This is for Pigeon who loves Babs being Oracle, Dick Grayson, and rats, written as celebration for her paper! I hope you like it!
> 
> Written as day 3 for my Halloweenish fics. Feel free to send me prompts at [thelittleredheadedmusician](https://thelittleredheadedmusician.tumblr.com/) on tumblr! Or just come say hi!

Babs glared at her screen. The motion detectors were going crazy in the West Wing, second floor of the Gotham Natural History Museum. The hall where the collection of precious stones and gems was on display behind thick panes of pelxiglas with thick locks and liberal alarms. The problem was the security cameras showed no one there. The footage wasn’t looped or old, she’d already checked, and yet nothing. But the motion detectors going off? In only the West Wing on the second floor? It was almost an annoyance more than anything.

No alarms had been tripped. There was a possibility of malfunction. Except Babs had already piggy-backed into the system and looked for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. The motion detectors were genuinely going off, registering actual movement. Except, it made no sense the pattern that they were flashing. She couldn’t trace any path or direction; they were just alerting at random.

Oracle had notified Gotham’s resident vigilantes of the oddity happening at the museum. Since no alarms were tripped, the police hadn’t been called. Babs didn’t think they’d be much use anyway.

Nightwing was the one who answered her request to check it out, slipping into the museum unnoticed except on her screens. “Oracle?” his voice came through her speakers. “I’m here but it looks like all the gems are in their places and the only break-in tonight is mine.”

“Thank you, Detective Wonder, I couldn’t see that myself,” she let a note of dry teasing slip into her voice.

Dick turned to smile at the closest security camera, “Happy to help!”

Smartass. At least it was a good one.

“You’re my hands and feet, Nightwing. So, get to gumshoeing before I boot you for one of my Batgirls.” It was only half a threat and they both knew it.

“Point taken,” Dick laughed. He began a slow trek through the space, looking for anything out of the ordinary and more importantly, anything missing. As he walked, Babs watched the screen showing the motion detectors. If anything, this little exercise was making it all more confusing instead of clearing it up. The sensors registered Dick’s steady and methodical progress and yet still were blinking seemingly at random. So, they were definitely registering movement. But of what?

“Nightwing, is there anything to your left right now? Anywhere to your left, low high?” Babs frowned at the steady blinking of the sensor right next to Dick’s current position and the video feed that showed empty air.

“No. Should there be?”

“According to the security system? Yes,” she sighed. Babs was good at puzzles, genuinely enjoyed them too. Twisting the information this way and that until a pattern appeared. Organizing and sorting until she had exactly what she needed. Taking something apart to see if she could determine how it worked and then put it back together once more. Looking at angles and theories and data. Taking it all in and making something new.

But this? This was chaos. Chaos that was giving her a bit of a headache with the insistent flashing. Not to mention the frustration that was building somewhere between her throat and her chest. In her jaw and her hands.

“O?” Dick said, spinning in a slow circle. “I know this is gonna sound crazy but, do you think this might be something… paranormal? Supernatural?”

Dropping her head into her hands knocked Babs’s glasses askew. “It does sound crazy,” she grumbled. “Except,” she sighed and sat up, “this is Gotham and our line of work so…”

Her fingers darted back to her keyboard, ready to pull up Zatanna or Raven’s contacts. Failing that – and god forbid – she was owed favors from Jason Blood and John Constantine so one of them could figure it out and Babs could wipe her hands of it. Just, she’d probably make Dick stick around to keep an eye on the gems if that was the case.

The call to Zatanna just began ringing through when a flash of white darted across the screen by Dick’s feet. Babs hung up on the mistress of magic and switched back to Dick’s comm. “Nightwing, what was that?”

“Not sure,” and he sure sounded it as he got down on his hands and knees. Dick reached into the shadows and Babs lost sight of what was happening. “Aha!” came his exclamation a few seconds later.

Dick stood again with something clutched between his hands. It was white and grey and wiggling slightly. “Is that… a rat?”

“A rat I know!” Dick sounded downright pleased. Babs hoped that meant he would hurry up and get to the explanation. “Oracle, say hi to Impulse!” he held the rat up to the camera.

“Unless something happened that no one told me about – and that is _highly_ unlikely – that is not Impulse. Impulse is either a five-foot three teenaged ball of hyperactivity or a chaotic eight-year-old. Not a rat.”

Dick was petting the rat and making kissy faces at it. Normally Babs liked his kissy faces but her patience was just about gone. “The rat was named for the former. By the Flash. My Flash. This is his roommate’s rat.”

“Well, Zookeeper Wonder, I’m going to take your word for it but if I call the Pied Piper and you turn out to be wrong, I am sending the recording of this conversation to _everyone_ in my contacts.” Babs trusted Dick; she wouldn’t have been that extreme if she didn’t. Also, it wasn’t really going to be _everyone_. Just a few key members of the family, Justice League, Birds, and Titans. They would take care of spreading it to everyone else.

The call to one Hartley Rathaway’s personal cell connected and Babs switched on her voice modulator. It wasn’t worth it when running comms, they all knew who she was anyway, but the Pied Piper was a little outside her normal sphere of influence.

“ _Hello?_ ” was the hesitant voice on the other end.

“Hello Piper, this is Oracle,” Babs said smoothly, watching Dick play with the rat and making her smile.

There was an audible gulp. “ _How can I help you?_ ”

“You wouldn’t by chance own a rat named Impulse who is currently running around the second floor, West Wing, of the Gotham Natural History Museum?”

A pause. Babs waited.

“ _Uh, yeah actually? How’d you know?_ ”

“Nightwing is currently giving it scritches.”

The soft sounds of cursing made her smile. Sometimes her job was just fun and even with the headaches she had to admit that. “ _That would explain a lot. Uh, I am not trying to rob the place if that makes you feel better? I got wind of some of the Rogues going out of town for a heist and thought I could stop them. Think of the rats as my field troops?_ ”

“Ah, so you are the reason the motion detectors have been going nuts.”

“ _Sorry?_ ”

“No worries. Just, for future reference, a courtesy call would be lovely and the local rodents and birds would certainly be happy to assist in such matters.” Babs smirked at her own joke.

“ _Right. Of course. Sorry,”_ there was a distinct wince in his tone.

She almost felt bad, but her scary reputation was more helpful than not. “I’m assuming you’re still in the area and the Rogues have yet to make a move?”

There was a pause, as though he was trying to figure out how to answer in a manner that wouldn’t incur her wrath. Or Batman’s. Ha, as though Babs was going to tell him any of this. No, what Bruce didn’t know didn’t hurt him and if he asked, she’d tell him she and Nightwing sorted it out and instruct Dick to do the same. And for her, he would. Granted, Mr. Rathaway on the other end of the line was unaware of all this.

“Piper?” she prompted. There were other things Babs had to do tonight and while her annoyance had waned and changed into amusement, she still wanted to wrap this up soon.

“ _Right. Sorry. I’m in Gotham? Fire escape on the building on the other side of the back alley to be exact._ ”

“Excellent. Do you have a shortwave comm?”

There was a breath of a laugh. Babs smiled; she’d known it was a dumb question too. Wally had a tendency to forget things here and there, which Babs had managed to get her hands on. She knew Piper’s tech and knew it was good. “ _Yeah. I do._ ”

“Switch to local channel eight, I’ll have Nightwing do the same and send him out to you. Not that I don’t trust you or your methods, but he is on the scene.”

“ _No it’s fine, I get it. And I appreciate it._ ”

Babs grinned. As they talked she had taken the liberty of hacking into one of the cameras on the museum’s rear and used it to locate Piper. Crouched on the lowest platform of the fire escape, a glint of silver that must be his flute in his lap. She could see his face from this angle, the hand he used to hold his phone to his ear pushing the dark green hood back just enough.

“Excellent. Thank you so much, your cooperation is appreciated and let me know if there’s anything I can assist you with tonight. I’m on channel one.”

“ _No problem. And, uh, thank you._ ” He seemed a little dumbfounded, eyes going wide on her screen.

“Oh, one more favor,” Babs said before she hung up and switched back to Dick. He didn’t seem to mind being left hanging this long so far anyway, combination of being used to it and distracted by Piper’s rats. “If you could call off your, ah, foot soldiers? I have nothing against rats, but I was this close to calling an exorcist. They’re doing murder on the motion sensors.”

He chuckled softly, just a hint of embarrassed. “ _Consider them gone._ ”

Without further ado, Babs hung up and sent Dick to meet him. Thank god it wasn’t a ghost. Magic users just mucked up the security systems for weeks after and she didn’t have the mental energy for all the footage that would need erasing.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm just throwing DC characters I like into a bag and picking out the ones who hardly if ever talk to each other and putting them together at this point. XD


End file.
